Bust a Groove
Bust a Groove is a hybrid music/fighting game for the Sony PlayStation released in 1998. The game was published by the Japanese video game developer Enix (now Square Enix) in Japan and brought to the U.S. by now-defunct 989 Studios. The original Japanese game was titled Bust a Move: Dance & Rhythm Action; in the U.S, it became Bust-A-Groove because the Japanese puzzle series Puzzle Bobble was already going under the name Bust-A-Move for its American incarnation. The game combined PaRappa the Rapper-like rhythm-based gameplay with fighting game elements, including special moves designed to damage the opponent and a focus on head-to-head competitive play. The sequel, Bust a Groove 2, unlike its predecessor, was never released in Europe. A third game in the series, Dance Summit 2001 was only released in Japan on the PlayStation 2. Gameplay The game mechanics are quite simple and focuses on beats. The player needs to press a series of arrows that appears on the interaction bar using the D-Pad and be able to press the corresponding face button (Circle or X) every fourth beat of the music to execute a dance move otherwise, it will be a miss. The player is aided with the beats by the blinking of the bar. When the player performs a combo of eight dance moves, new paths with more complex moves open up, allowing the player to earn more points. The player could also execute a "Jammer" (attack) to interrupt the enemy which could also be dodged by a somersault move. A dodge could be used by pressing Square at the right time, which would cause the character to do a backflip and avoid the attack. Characters Songs Versions The game was made available in two different packages in Japan; the first is the more common single-disc (game only) version. The second package is a lesser-known version which contains two discs: the game disc and the Premium Disc. The Premium Disc contains four movies, and to access the movies you had to have a memory card with a Bust a Move save file on it. Accomplishing certain tasks in the game would unlock certain movies. One of the movies on the disc featured Hatsumi Morinaga, the artist responsible for singing the theme of Kitty-N's stage. This feature contained shots of the artist singing the song in the studio, an interview with the artist, and a live-action version of the game, complete with costumed Japanese dancers taking the parts of the various characters (Kitty-N, Heat, and Kelly are all included, amongst others). The other three movies contained within the disc were all for other Enix games: AstroNooori (a game unreleased in the U.S.), Star Ocean: The Second Story, and Hello Charlie (known as Eggs of Steel in the U.S.). The premium version was otherwise identical to the game-only version; the gameplay, box art, and instruction manual were essentially the same, with the exception of a large red box with white type on the spine card proclaiming the addition of a Premium CD-ROM. Changes The U.S. version of the game had a number of changes from the Japanese version, mostly due to cultural differences between countries. Bust a Groove: Arcade Edition An arcade edition of Bust a Groove (Bust a Move) was exclusively released in Japan. Although released only in Japan, it held the title of Bust a Groove which is the English release title. The controls are still the same from the PlayStation version but changed how to execute them. The player now has to press the giant Left, Up and Right buttons in a giant pad and step on a foot pedal for the 'Down' command while the PlayStation buttons (Square, X etc.), are replaced by a giant "Dance!" button. The buttons also had to be pressed in a rhythmic manner or still be counted as a "miss". A Jammer button was also included. The arcade version features only 5 stages (Robo-Zs stage always being the last one). All info from: Wikipedia Category:Bust a Groove